Putin’s comments on Jews cause a stir in America

American politicians and Jewish communities took offense at Russian President Vladimir Putin for suggesting that ethnic minorities, including Jews, may be behind the interference in the US elections attributed to Russia.

The reason for the angry publication in The Washington Post was Putin’s interview with the American television channel NBC News, which was published on Friday, March 9, where the Russian president denied all accusations against Russia of interfering in the US presidential election in 2016, and lamented the US refusal to cooperate in this matter.

“We proposed joint work in the field of cyberspace. But the US refuses to officially work in this direction. The press is thrown by some 13 Russians in the Mueller list. Maybe they are not even Russian. Maybe they are Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, just with Russian citizenship. Even this must be checked. Maybe they have dual citizenship, maybe a green card. Maybe they were paid for this work by the Americans. How do you know? I do not know,” Vladimir Putin told the American journalist Megyn Kelly.

But, it would seem, a simple and innocuous mention of Jews caused an explosion from Putin’s opponents:

“His commentary on the Jews, in which he supposedly assumed that a Russian Jew was not a real Russian, caused particular outrage among those who remember the age-old history of anti-Semitism and Jewish purges in Russia. Some groups compared the statement with anti-Jewish myths that helped inspire the Holocaust, ” states The Washington Post.

Recall, in February, the US Justice Department charged 13 Russian citizens and three companies in the investigation of the case about possible interference by Russia in the presidential campaign in the US in 2016. Russia has repeatedly denied such accusations.

Inessa Sinchougova is an Editor and Journalist at Fort Russ News, as well as a research fellow and translator of the Belgrade based think-tank, the Center for Syncretic Studies. She was educated at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), in the field of Political Science and was previously employed in Marketing and Communications Strategy for a Multi-National Corporation. She runs a popular YouTube channel for translations of key Russian Foreign Policy figures and appears regularly on other alternative media channels. If you like her work, you can support her Patreon here.